


Locked Room Mystery

by 221b_hound



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Child Neglect, Gen, Holmes Brothers' Childhood, Kidnapping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-28
Updated: 2014-01-28
Packaged: 2018-01-10 08:03:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1157135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/221b_hound/pseuds/221b_hound
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Someone has sent NSY a video of a young boy being held prisoner in a locked room. Sherlock Holmes does not seem very interested in solving the case. Everyone's about to learn something important, and Donovan's going to have an epiphany she won't enjoy.</p><p>(not season 3 compliant)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Locked Room Mystery

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bibliolatry](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bibliolatry/gifts).



> Bibliolatry sent me a plot bunny. 
> 
> Donovan receives an untraceable email. When she clicks the link in it, a live video feed pops up of a young boy (6-7ish) being held in a room with no visible windows/doors. She calls on Sherlock, the only person she knows can figure out the mystery before the time runs out. What happens if Sherlock can't find the boy before the clock runs out? Who is the boy and who's keeping him captive?
> 
> ANd so this happened.
> 
> yeah, I'm having issues with a parent lately. This is probably a healthier outlet than most, right? 
> 
> My story hasn't the live feed, but otherwise I tried to keep to the prompt.

It had taken some persuading to get Holmes in to the station to even look at the video. Finally, Lestrade had sent a couple of screen shots to the detective, not wanting to send the whole thing on through the email. Against policy. But damnit, Sherlock Holmes was the only one with a hope of helping them to find the boy in time.

Instead of demanding that the footage be burnt to disk or loaded to a memory stick and brought around, Sherlock had dashed straight around to the station, John at his heels.

Sherlock Holmes sat at Donovan’s desk and watched the video with a closed expression. Guarded. Neutral.

The boy was around six years old. He had a woollen beanie pulled down over his head, but a few strands of hair escaped from underneath it. Dark hair, wavy, recently cut by an amateur. An older sibling had done it, tidying the boy's own earlier, mangled effort.

The boy’s eyes were open wide, taken in everything around him. His eyes were pale blue and voracious, soaking up the little there was to be seen. Finally, he seemed to notice there was a camera on him. He pulled up the stool that was in the small, sparsely decorated room. Put it on the bed. Climbed onto the stool, even though it wobbled alarmingly, and put one hand on the wall to steady it. He stared up, up, into the camera that looked down at him from the corner of the room.

“Hello,” he said to it.

“Who’s there?” he said to it.

“You don’t scare me,” he said, pugnaciously, not sounding the slightest bit frightened.

“My brother is going to get you for this,” said the boy. Then he climbed off the stool, and off the bed, and sat on the floor in the opposite corner to stare up at the camera, which moved, tracking the child’s motion.

The boy tilted his head, regarding the camera with narrowed eyes. He drew his knees up, wrapped his hands around them, and stared, unblinkingly at it for a long time, then seemed to get bored. He lowered his chin to his knees and stared straight ahead of him, thinking. His lips were moving as though reciting something. The periodic table, John thought.

The boy wore jeans. A thick, knitted blue and black jumper. At its neck, the collar of a plain blue button-up was visible, and under that, a blue T-shirt. On his feet were a pair of battered sneakers. Adidas. Black with red trim.

The boy folded his arms and tucked his hands under his armpits. He was clearly getting cold. He gave a wistful sigh and closed his eyes.

The image faded out; faded back in. Time had clearly passed, and the few furnishings had been rearranged. The boy had pulled the bed apart, making a little shelter for himself, the bedframe tilted longwise against the wall like a lean to, with a sheet draped over it for privacy. The mattress was on the floor, only a section of it visible from the camera.

The child emerged from behind the lean to, doing up his fly. He glared up at the camera.

“I want to wash my hands. I want a bath. I want clean pants.” As he shot out his litany of wants, his eyes started to fill with tears. “I want my books. I want my own bed. I want my brother. I want to go home. When are you letting me go home?”

He glared, pale eyes shining with anger and distress. As tears started to fall, he dashed at them with his wrist and threw himself on the bed. Only his feet were in view now. He kicked them, expressing his frustration, and was still.

Another segue. The boy was sitting in the corner of the room, as far from his makeshift bathroom as he could get, his nose wrinkled, probably against the smell.

A section at the bottom of the wall slid up, revealing a low gap, large enough for a medium sized dog, perhaps. The boy started towards it, but halted as a tray was pushed in. It contained soap, a flannel and a dish of hot water. A folded piece of paper was next to it.

The child, astonishingly self-possessed, knelt to wash his hands first. He dried them on the flannel provided, then read the note. He wrinkled his nose again. Went to the lean-to, brought out a bucket from behind it. Put it on the tray and pushed it over to the door.

When the little trap door opened up, the boy kicked the bucket so that it spilled onto whoever had reached in for it. The person on the other side cursed and called the boy a lot of awful names.

“What do you _expect_ , that I’ll be _grateful_?” The boy snarled.

Tray and bucket disappeared. The boy stared at the trap door for a while, then sighed and flopped down against the wall again. He pulled off his beanie, revealing flattened dark curls, and squished the woolly hat in his hands, pushing and pulling at it, frowning.

He stared up at the camera.

“You’d better give me a clean bucket. And some food.” His eyes were icy, glaring, but the boy’s hands were clearly shaking. “And something to read. And some clean clothes.” He took a breath and calmed himself. “My brother is so going to get you for this. You just watch out. He is going to get you, and he’s going to make my parents get you. Just you wait and see.”

The video cycled through, showing lapses in time. Fifteen more minutes of it, fading in and out to show the passage of days. Food coming and going. The bucket, coming and going. Once, a book, that the boy threw across the room in a fit because it was a stupid _kid’s_ book, and he wanted a _proper_ book.

That brave boy glaring, and shouting, and making demands, and only sometimes crying. Whenever he was most scared, he would stand up and point an angry finger at the camera. “My brother is going to make you sorry,” he’d say, and then stomp and storm around his little cell, muttering.

But the last shot of the video was that little boy curled up in a corner, arms around his knees, weeping, his mop of curly hair covering his face.

Sherlock watched it all with a bland expression.

John, at his side, watched too, with a puzzled frown.

When the footage stopped, Donovan glared at Sherlock. “Well?” she said.

“Well what?”

“Is that all you’ve got to say? That boy’s trapped in there, and we have to get him out.”

“You’ve got an IT department,” said Sherlock tiredly, “Trace who sent it.”

“You think we haven’t already thought of that?”

Sherlock smirked in a way that indicated he very much thought they hadn’t already thought of that.

Lestrade stepped in. “Sherlock, please, give us _something._ We got that video this morning. That kid’s been there at least four days, and we have got absolutely _nothing_ to go on. Our IT forensics are working on it, but all they can tell us was it was filmed on a really old home video unit. We’ve got no background sounds, nothing distinctive about how he’s dressed. And there are no missing kid reports that match this boy.”

“He’ll be all right,” said Sherlock dismissively, “I’m much more interested in who sent this and why.”

Sally’s glare could have cut steel. “ _He’ll be all right_? He’s six years old! How can you watch that and just dismiss him.”

“Seven years old. I am not dismissing him. He’ll get over it.”

“You utter bastard. He’s a tough little kid, I’ll give you that, but he’s still…”

“You think so?” asked Sherlock, eyebrow arched, “ _A tough little kid_?”

“Of course he is,” she snarled, “Tough, and he knows what he’s about in there. He’s not giving up. Of course he’s crying, he’s scared, but he’s not giving up. You can see that.”

“He’s smart,” said John quietly. Sally turned to glare at him as well, then softened as he continued. “Resourceful. Brave. Scared too, of course, but he doesn’t want to show it. He’s keeping it together, as you say. He has faith that he'll be rescued.”

Sally nodded. “Poor little tyke.”

Sherlock sighed, an aggrieved and even partially amused sound, earning Donovan’s ire again. “You’re a heartless prick,” she said.

“If you like. But he’s in no danger. In fact, by now, surely you can see that he’s either dead or has been released to live a long, healthy life.”

“What the fuck..?”

“Those shoes of his. An old design. Thirty years at least. I had that exact pair at his age.”

“You…”

“The video quality is indeed grainy. It was recorded on old film as well as on an old recorder. The room in which he is being held, I know it. It’s from an old estate on the outskirts of Exeter.”

Lestrade began dialling his mobile. “What’s the address? Where?”

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” said Sherlock blandly. He plunked himself down to look at the email that had accompanied the footage.

Donovan looked like she wanted to beat Sherlock to a pulp with an office chair. Lestrade looked like he wanted to hold Sherlock down while she did.

“Sherlock…”

“The estate no longer stands. It was demolished fifteen years ago.”

“But…”

Sherlock peered at the screen and began searching, inputting commands, pressing his fingers to the screen as though he could reach into the computer itself to find what he wanted to know.

John stood behind him, having inserted himself between Donovan and Lestrade. “Stop messing with them, Sherlock,” he said darkly, “It’s not funny.”

“No,” agreed Sherlock, “It wasn’t.”

“How long were you in there?” John asked.

Lestrade and Donovan froze.

Sherlock looked over his shoulder at John. Blinked. “Five days,” he said.

“Who got you out?”

“He let me out himself. Just opened the door, gave me a fiver and told me to run along.”

“So you did.”

“Well, I kicked him in the shins first.”

John smiled. “Of course you did. Too short to kick him in the bollocks back then, I suppose.”

“Alas, yes. And then he hanged himself.”

“Oh.”

“Well, I didn’t find that out until later.”

Donovan and Lestrade were staring at them both.

John gave a sort of half shrug. "I recognised him." The 'why didn't you?' was unspoken.

“That…” Donovan drew a shaky breath, “That boy. That’s…. _you_?”

“Thirty years ago, and as you see, I have recovered perfectly well from the ordeal. _Tough little tyke_ indeed.” Sherlock smirked. He turned his attention back to the screen, to the wording of the email. “Oh, I see. I ignored his emails. He thought _you’d_ have a better chance of getting me to pay attention to this one.”

Lestrade scowled, and it was hard to tell who he was scowling at now. Donovan, the sender of the email, Sherlock, John or the sympathy he’d had for that scared, pugnacious little boy in the video.

“I’d like a bit more information, Sherlock, _if you don’t mind_.”

Sherlock sighed and frowned.

“I… wouldn’t mind knowing myself. Who did that to you, and why.” John’s voice was calm, but there was a thread under it, a dark promise to that little boy.  _If your brother failed to do so, **I** will make them sorry. I will make them **so sorry** they did that to you._

Sherlock smiled. Thirty years after the fact; thirty years too late, but it meant something. That unvoiced promised mattered because, he thought, John would actually have done it. Unlike everyone else. If there was anyone left to blame for it, John would make them sorry _now_ , if he could.

For everyone else, Sherlock shrugged. “Simple enough story. Hideously dull, really. My father’s accountant committed a spectacular bit of fraud. Embezzled most of the family funds, except what had been held in trust for Mycroft’s and my education. He got found out. He kidnapped me and sent threatening letters to my parents – don’t call the cops, let me leave for Europe unmolested by the police, you'll get your son back. He sent video and everything, as you see. Moron. Counting on parental affection that, it turned out, did not exist.”

Sherlock’s nose wrinkled. He jabbed at the keyboard and brought up a chain of codes on the screen. Then he picked up his phone, opened the messages and scrolled through his own email.

“What happened?” Lestrade had opted for a quiet tone, kind, even. Next to him, Donovan kept staring at Sherlock as though she was having an epiphany, and not much enjoying it.

“They ignored him of course. Five days later he realised they had no interest in letting him escape. Very possibly even less interest in _that_ than they had in _me_. So he opened the door, gave me bus fare, I kicked him in the shins and I ran. I was home by teatime. My parents made a polite show of being pleased to see me. Mummy even cried a little, and Mycroft wouldn’t let me out of his sight for a month. It was very irritating. Some months later I overheard Father talking to Mycroft about how annoyed he was that Cosgrave had hanged himself in my cell and therefore avoided prosecution. Mycroft found the complaint rather droll, as I recall.”

Sherlock didn’t know what to make of the hand on his shoulder. John’s hand. Steadying and warm. He decided he liked it, even if it, too, was 30 years late.

“Sherlock…”

“All’s well, blah, blah, blah. My family expressed a certain reserved satisfaction that they didn’t have to go to the effort of producing another spare to the heir, especially since we were now broke, and they continued to ignore me, as usual. Mycroft was sent off to school that year. Life went on. And here we all are, at the end of this heartwarming family story. Ah, there we have it!”

Sherlock hit reply on an email on his own screen and his fingers flew over the tiny keyboard.

 _Tell whoever you like about it_ , he typed, _What interest do I have in my family’s reputation? Or try my parents. See if they can scrape up any funds for your blackmail. Seeing as I wasn’t considered worth the effort at the time, I hardly see that you’ll have better luck. I wish it to you nonetheless._

He pressed send.

He rose from the chair. “Well, that’s all done. You can pursue him if you like, but I wouldn’t bother.”

“But who…?”

“Cosgrave’s son.  Needs money. Don’t we all. I don’t intend to press charges, myself. It’s all rather late for that.” He pulled his coat around himself and strode for the door. “John?”

John was already at his side.

“This has been a tedious afternoon,” Sherlock complained, throwing on his scarf.

“You said you had some samples to collect from Molly,” said John, doing up his coat, “Let’s go get them.”

They left. Behind them, Lestrade and Donovan frowned.

“I’ll… finish up the paperwork then,” said Sally awkwardly.

“Yeah,” said Lestrade. “I’m… going to look through the records. For this Cosgrave suicide. For the file.”

On the street, Sherlock hailed a cab and once inside, he turned to regard John closely. John, who was frowning, and unhappy, his hands flexing as though he’d very much like to punch someone.

“Last month,” said Sherlock, “The Abernathy case. Where they were holding me in an old freezer room.” 

John raised an eyebrow at Sherlock. The freezer room had not been connected to power, and was therefore not in the process of freezing Sherlock when John had stealthily arrived. He’d knocked out two guards, freed Sherlock from where he was ziplocked to a chair, and punched two more thugs several times more than strictly necessary as they made their escape. The case had been resolved satisfactorily all around.

“You came for me.” Sherlock grinned.

“Of course I came for you,” said John crankily. Then he caught the gleam in Sherlock’s eye. “Of course I did.” 

“Of course you did,” agreed Sherlock, and he settled back in the cab, still grinning.

 _And you made them sorry_ , Sherlock thought, and he grinned more widely still.

John nodded, once, satisfied, and they made their way in companionable silence to St Bart’s to collect a pancreas for experimentation.


End file.
